Until this presentation, tribal education
was not something I had much considered. I think there’s definitely a bias
towards people living on reservations—many people just assume that typically a
lot of Native Americans don’t bother with education beyond high school because they
have different lifestyles from us. And there’s this assumption that if a Native
American is an exception and wants to get a degree, he’ll leave his
reservation, get educated, and not come back, perpetuating the cycle & low
percentage of college educated people on reservations.
The idea of a community college is, in my
opinion, an excellent approach to this issue. The Tohono O’odham Community
College sounds like it’s doing a great job at this; the number of students
attending is on the rise, the school is getting a lot of financial support from
the community, and the degrees being earned are largely technical ones that can
be put towards good use and progress within the reservation and won’t require
graduates to leave to actually have opportunities with their degrees.
I know finances have historically been an
issue with education on reservations, and even today I doubt that all of the
eligible tribal members are utilizing tools like FAFSA to finance their
degrees. I think it could be beneficial to the Tohono O’odham to make an effort
to communicate how to use these tools & encourage additional education
because with a more educated general public, the Tohono O’odham would gain additional
sovereignty just because it would reduce their susceptibility to anything
imposed by the US government and help their voices to be heard.
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